Only four days left to early-vote in person. Find out where to do that here.

U.S. employers hired 171,000 people in October and revised
job growth over the previous two months, finding it had been stronger
than previously thought. However, unemployment inched up to 7.9 percent
from 7.8 percent in September, due to more out-of-work people looking
for work. People are only considered unemployed if they’re actively
searching for work. More people entering the workforce and increased job
growth had the stock market jumping, with the Dow Jones Industrial
Average futures up 30 points within minutes of the opening bell.

COAST has been keeping busy this week. The anti-tax group
filed two lawsuits, one trying to block the sale of some land near the
former Blue Ash Airport to prevent the cash from being used for the
streetcar, and the other against Cincinnati Public Schools over
allegations that staff used school emails to promote voter registration
drives and offering to volunteer and contribute to the campaign
supporting the CPS school levy (issue 42).

The U.S. Senate race between incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown
and Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel has been expensive, no doubt. But what
has all that money gone to? An analysis by The Enquirer shows that the
nearly $30 million spent by both campaigns on the race has gone from
everything from pollsters to Cincinnati Reds tickets to a used Jeep
Cherokee. The largest expenditure for Brown’s campaign was $1.7 million
for staff salaries, while the largest of Mandel’s expenditures was $1.7
million on TV ads.

People thinking about entering law school next year,
rejoice. Despite a dire job market for new graduates, both campaigns
have mobilized armies of lawyers in preparations to sue for votes in
battleground states. If the next election is this close, you might have a
job in four years. Assuming the Mayans were wrong about the apocalypse
and everything.

A joint committee of Cincinnati City Council met Thursday
to discuss allegations that workers at the University Square development
in Clifton aren’t being paid enough. They didn’t take any action, other
than asking the city to investigate, but agreed that there needs to be
better oversight to make sure workers on taxpayer-funded projects are
paid what they’re supposed to earn.

If you are accused of a crime in Ohio and police take your
DNA, they get to keep it on file, even if you’re acquitted. The Ohio
Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that DNA samples are like fingerprints
and can be kept even if a suspect is acquitted of a crime.

A bunch of dirty hippies “light warriors” buried hundreds
of muffin-crystal-thingies in at Serpent Mound to help realign the
energy of the ancient Native American burial mound. They were caught
because they made a YouTube video of their alleged desecration.

If there’s a Democrat-led war on coal in Ohio, it’s not showing in
the numbers. PolitiFact checked Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown’s claim that coal
jobs and production have gone up in the state since five years ago, and it turns out he’s right. Brown’s remark was in response to Republican challenger Josh Mandel’s claim that Democrats are leading a war on coal. Brown and Mandel are fighting for Ohio's U.S. Senate seat, which CityBeat covered in-depth here. Currently, Brown leads by 5.5 points in aggregate polling.

The Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST) is suing Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) for allegedly using city resources to campaign for Issue 42,
which will renew a CPS levy from 2008. In the emails, school officials
discuss voter registration drives, signing up to support the levy and
contributing to the levy campaign. But in a few emails, Jens Sutmoller, campaign coordinator for Issue 42, asks for personal emails to properly respond. COAST has endorsed a “No” vote on Issue 42.CityBeat covered Issue 42 and the problems facing CPS here. CityBeat also endorsed a “Yes” vote on Issue 42 here.

Dropping enrollment in urban district schools, including CPS, has caused some schools to revise building programs downward,
saving the state money. In CPS in particular, the school’s project has
dropped down to 50 buildings from 66 partly in response to a decline in
about 10,000 students since 2002 to about 32,687 enrolled students today. The shift apparently has less to do
with students moving to the suburbs and more to do with the greater
availability of charter and private schools.

A small fraction of absentee ballots might have been rejected due to a state data glitch.
The glitch caused Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted to deliver 33,000
updated registration records to local elections issues. Tim Burke,
chairman of the county Democratic Party and county Board of Elections,
expressed mixed feelings about the error: “Obviously, you hate like hell
to have the secretary of state’s office, which had promised to have a
very efficient election, popping something like that on us seven days
out. … Having said that, I’m glad at least once they recognized that
these names are out there they moved to get them to us so that we can do
our best to ensure that these folks are not disenfranchised because of
some administrative glitch.”

In related news, Husted got the emergency stay he asked for on a recent voting ruling. Husted said he was happy with the decision in a statement:
“With six days to go before Election Day, I am pleased that the Court
has granted a stay in this case so that I can give the 88 county boards
of elections the clear direction they need on the rules for processing
provisional ballots.”

There are a few teachers campaigning for office in Ohio, and NPR says the campaigns could give Democrats and Obama a boost.
The surge of teachers is largely attributed to Senate Bill 5, which
tried to limit collective bargaining among public employees. The
teachers figure the only way to prevent another Senate Bill 5 is by
holding office.

There are also Ohio Board of Education candidates on this
year’s ballot. StateImpact Ohio has a look into some of those candidates
here.

A survey
found small firms are doing very little to prepare for Obamacare. Most
don’t know what the national health care plan will even do for them.
About 70 percent were unsure or incorrectly believed Obamacare will make
them pay a tax.

Ever want to play Tetris with a pumpkin? Well, apparently someone has.

An error in how voters update their address online caused
updated registration records to be delivered late to Ohio’s election
officials. With about a week left in Ohio’s voting process, the late delivery might have caused the Hamilton County Board of
Elections to mistakenly reject some eligible voters because officials did not
have the voters’ current addresses.

Amy Searcy, director of elections
at the board, says it’s unclear how many registered voters were
affected, but 2,129 updated registration records were sent from Ohio Secretary of State John Husted’s
office. She says the number could end up varying since some of the
records are duplicates.

Across the state, an unknown number of ballots were
mistakenly rejected as 33,000 registration records were sent late on
Monday and Tuesday. Cleveland's The Plain Dealerreported 71 voters were mistakenly rejected in Cuyahoga County.

Matt McClellan, Husted’s spokesperson, said Husted’s
offices were previously unaware of the data, which is why it wasn’t
requested before the glitch was detected by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV).

The glitch caused the BMV to not properly send online address changes to Husted’s office, says Joe Andrews, communications
director at the Ohio Department of Public Safety, which oversees the BMV. He
added, “As soon as we discovered it, we fixed it. And I think that, in
cooperation with the secretary of state’s office, the problem has been
remedied.”

In a directive detailing the delay, Husted touted the benefits of the catch.

“While the timing is unfortunate, we are extremely pleased
that the data from this new system can be sent electronically and will
require minimal data entry,” he wrote. “Additionally, the new system has
the potential to help reduce provisional ballots significantly.”

Tim Burke, chairman of the county Board of Elections and county Democratic Party, expressed mixed feelings about the caught error.

“Obviously, you hate like hell to have the secretary of
state’s office, which had promised to have a very efficient election,
popping something like that on us seven days out,” he says. “Having said
that, I’m glad at least once they recognized that these names are out
there they moved to get them to us so that we can do our best to ensure
that these folks are not disenfranchised because of some administrative
glitch.”

Media musings from Cincinnati and beyond

• After weeks of dreary campaign coverage and
soul-destroying political ads, here’s a day brightener. Jian Ghomeshi’s
long-format interview radio show, Q, scored a rare interview with J. K. Rowling. She was in New York promoting her first adult-audience book, The Casual Vacancy.

Among other things, Ghomeshi asked why she courts news media criticism
by giving so few interviews. “Well, I just don’t think I have that much
to say.” And why do the news media make so much of her reluctance?
“That’s because the media is very interested in the media,” she said.

I laughed so hard I had to sit down in our northern Ontario cabin. Q is a morning program and evening repeat on Canada’s CBC Radio. Q is heard here at 9 p.m. weekdays on WVXU.

• Further proof that life as we know it revolves around Cincinnati: the Oct. 29 New Yorker’s
essay on the fraud of voting fraud begins with Hamilton County. We’re
the perfect example of GOP supporters trying to intimidate voters. A key
point made by reporter Jane Mayer’s sources: photo IDs might deter
someone impersonating a genuine voter but you don’t corrupt an election
that way. You need massive — if subtle — manipulation of the vote count.

• So, is anyone confident your vote will be counted
accurately? We don’t get a receipt showing how our votes were tallied.
Any retailer can give us a receipt showing what we’ve paid by charge or
debit card. So where are the reporters asking Boards of Elections why it
can’t give us a receipt and editorials demanding this accountability?
Receipts won’t prevent corrupt officials, employees or hackers from
going into voting-counting computers after we vote, but it might deter
some.

• Hamilton County Board of Elections assures the Enquirer
that its voting machines are secure. No computer-based anything is
secure. Computers are more or less vulnerable to external hacking and
surreptitious insider reprogramming. Worrying about GOP ties to voting
machine companies doesn’t make me a conspiracy crank. It matters because
of Romney’s links to the current equipment provider. In 2004, the
then-provider of our voting machines was “committed to helping Ohio
deliver its electoral votes to the president (Bush) next year.” That was
Walden W. O'Dell’s promise. He was chief executive of Canton-based
Diebold Inc., which made voting machines Ohio used in 2004. W carried
Ohio that year.

• GOP efforts to restrict voting is second
only to the Republican commitment to ending a woman’s access to
abortion. It’s not new. In all of this year’s reporting about Republican
voter suppression — photo IDs, phony “official” mailings misdirecting
voters of color, etc. — didn’t find references to William Rehnquist
before he was Chief Justice of the U.S.

Google is rich with
Rehnquist’s dark history as a GOP operative. This came from a
files.nyu.edu post about John Dean’s book, The Rehnquist Choice.
The folks at New York University said “Dean was a member of Nixon's
cabinet, was Nixon's counsel in the Watergate affair and played a
prominent role in selecting Rehnquist as a Supreme Court nominee. He
writes that Rehnquist was part of roving ‘squads’ of Republican lawyers
who went from precinct to precinct, confronting and harassing black and
Latino voters.” Here’s what Dean wrote on pages 272-273 of The Rehnquist Choice:

“Collectively, these witnesses described 'squads,' or teams, that moved
quickly from precinct to precinct to disqualify voters, confronting
black and Hispanic voters standing in line at the polls by asking them
questions about their qualifications, or holding up a small card with a
passage from the U.S. Constitution and demanding that the voter read it
aloud; also photographing people standing in line to vote."

"All told, the Democrats produced fourteen people who swore they had
witnessed Rehnquist challenging voters. In rebuttal, the Republicans
produced eight witnesses who claimed they had not seen or heard of
Rehnquist challenging voters — but none of them could testify that they
were actually with Rehnquist during any entire election day, nor did
their testimony cover all the elections involved in the charges . . .
The evidence is clear and convincing that Rehnquist was not truthful
about his activities in challenging voters."

• Most Americans
tell pollsters they rely on TV for their news. Next Tuesday, these
viewers will take their rich opinions and impoverished facts into the
voting booth. This recalls Mr. Whig, the fictional alter ego of a great
Enquirer editorial page editor, Thom Gephardt, who frequently muttered,
“I fear for the Republic.”

• Much as I have followed
campaign coverage, I have little or no idea of what Obama and Romney
will do to create jobs, ease immigration problems, provide and pay
medical professionals to care for millions to be covered by Obamacare,
wean us from deadly coal, cope with problems associated with fracking
for oil and natural gas, make the wind blow and sun shine, reduce or
slow global warming, bring Palestinians and Israelis closer to a
peaceful two-state resolution, deal with the Taliban when it returns to
power, etc. Despite what I hear from any liberals/progressives, Obama
hasn’t disappointed me; I wrote nothing on that blank slate in 2008. It
sufficed that he wasn’t McCain. In his way, Romney increasingly recalls
Nixon in 1972 with his “secret plan” to end the Vietnam war. He had no
plan. That was the secret. Deja vu all over again.

• Mark Curnutte’s Sunday Enquirer
post-mortem on the lethal street culture of revenge among some young
black Cincinnatians is as current as perps who became victims soon after
he interviewed them and Amanda Davidson took their photos.

•
CNN.com “unpublishes” reporter Elizabeth Landau’s story linking women’s
hormones to political choices. CNN says the story wasn’t edited
adequately. The study by a Texas academic concludes that ovulation makes
women feel sexier. Ovulating single women are likelier to vote for
Obama (liberal) and ovulating married women or women in other committed
relationships are likelier to vote for Romney (conservative.) I wonder
if CNN pulled the story because some subjects are beyond inquiry, like
women’s abilities for math and science or racial/ethnic differences in
various pursuits. Then there is the whole fantasy about “unpublishing”
an online post. You can get to the original story — replaced by an
editor’s note on CNN.com — at poynter.com or dailykos.com.

• The Seattle Times
seeks to restore readers’ trust after it published free ads for the
Republican candidate for governor and for supporters of a state gay
marriage referendum. The ads make the paper part of each group’s
propaganda machine. There is no other way to say it. Good luck to
reporters who have to cover those campaigns. Maybe someone should create
the “Almost Darwin Awards” for news media bent on self-destruction. You
don’t know Darwin Awards? Look it up. The awards are as funny as Seattle Times’ claims to virtue are cringe-worthy.

After the paper’s ethical pratfall and a newsroom rebellion, the Seattle Times
turned its fact-checkers loose on those free partisan ads and gave the
ads a rating of “half true.” (T)wo ads that were checked contained two
true claims, one mostly true, one half true and two that were false, the
paper and Poynter.com said.

• Newsroom rebellions rarely go public like that by Seattle Times journalists (above). Years ago, then-owners of the Minneapolis Tribune and Star
supported relocation of the Viking/Twins stadium from the ‘burbs to
downtown. Here’s what the New York Times said in its obit of the
publisher, John Cowles Jr.:

“Opponents, including staff members at The Minneapolis Tribune,
thought it was a clear conflict of interest for the owner of a
newspaper to take a public position on an important local issue it was
covering . . . (S)taff members placed an ad in their own paper
disassociating themselves from the company’s involvement.”

•
Fifty years ago, we almost had a nuclear war over missiles in Cuba and
en route on Soviet freighters. Regardless of where U.S. ships turned
back the freighters, it was the real thing, no Gulf of Tonkin or Weapons
of Mass Destruction fraud. I was at UPI in London and the Brits were
very, very frightened; in a nuclear war, both sides’ missiles could be
overhead and Soviets would attack Britain’s RAF and Royal Navy nuclear
strike forces. I went to the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square. The crowd
was hostile. Least threatening were those carrying or wearing what is
now known as the “peace symbol.” Then it was the much more potent and
timely totem of Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

•
Half a century later, that British CND symbol is a meaningless design
for feathered earrings and leather-thong necklaces. But turn the symbol
upside down so that the “wings” tilt up. You have the Brits’ Vulcan
“V-bomber.” It was the heart of their Cold War airborne nuclear
deterrent during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vulcan bases would have
been targets in any nuclear exchange.

• Only a coverup is
juicier than the original scandal, especially in broadcasting. BBC is
tearing itself apart over the sex scandal. Arrests have begun: Convicted
pedophile and BBC TV entertainer Gary Glitter is the first. Hundreds
claim a leading children’s program presenter and colleagues molested
hundreds of girls at BBC studios, children's hospitals and other
locations. The focus of the probe, Jimmy Savile, is dead. His victims —
including women at BBC — offer explicit tales of his harassment and
abuse. BBC execs are accusing each other of lying or misleading
parliament; Scotland Yard is beginning to ask why police didn’t act
sooner on repeated reports and complaints about Savile and other abusers
at BBC.

• AP says New York Times
publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. last week reiterated his support for
the Times’ new CEO, Mark Thompson. Thompson, who was BBC’s director
general until last month, has been under scrutiny over the BBC’s
decision to cancel its major investigative program about Savile sexually
abusing youngsters. AP says Sulzberger told Times staff that he was
satisfied that Thompson had no role in canceling the explosive program.
As with all scandals and coverups, we will learn what BBC and Scotland
Yard knew and when they knew it. Lovely.

Ohio’s unemployment rate dropped to 7.0 percent in
September despite employers cutting 12,800 jobs. The rate is much
lower than September's national unemployment rate of 7.8 percent.
Ohio actually lost jobs in manufacturing, construction, education,
health services, government and other sectors, with some gains in
professional and business services, information services and trade,
transportation and utilities. The new rate is a big improvement from the
8.6 percent unemployment rate in September 2011. This is the last state
unemployment rate Ohioans will see before the Nov. 6 election.

The second debate for Ohio's U.S. Senate seat took place last night. As
usual, Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown and Republican challenger Josh
Mandel held back no punches. Each candidate mostly focused on attacking
his opponent’s integrity and record, but the men also discussed a
multitude of issues — the economy, China, Obamacare, foreign policy, gay
rights and more. Check out CityBeat’s in-depth coverage of the debate and the policy proposals espoused by the candidates here.

To make the debate more fun, CityBeat will host a party at MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine Monday. Come join the CityBeat
team to watch the debate and live tweet. Councilman Chris Seelbach will
also show up and talk for a bit. If you can’t show up, feel free to
tweet about the debate at home with the hashtag #cbdebate. For more
information, check out the event’s Facebook page.

Ohio Senate Democrats are demanding an investigation into a
voter fraud group. The Democrats say True the Vote (TTV), a
conservative group, is unnecessarily intimidating voters. TTV claims
it’s just fighting voter impersonation fraud, but the reality is that
kind of voter fraud doesn’t seem to exist. A study from the Government
Accountability Office found zero cases of voter impersonation fraud in
the past 10 years. Another study from News21 found 10 cases since 2000,
or less than one case a year.

A federal appeals court struck down the federal Defense of
Marriage Act (DOMA), which forbids the recognition of same-sex marriage
at a federal level. The ruling was praised by Ian James, spokesperson
for FreedomOhio, in a statement: “The federal DOMA forbids allowing
governmental recognition of civil marriage. The demise of the federal
DOMA will not resolve Ohio’s ban on marriage equality. For this reason,
we will soldier on, collect our petition signatures and win the right
for committed and loving couples to be married so they can better care
for and protect their families. That is ultimately why marriage matters
and we look to have this issue on the ballot as soon as November 2013.”

With a week left, the United Way of Greater Cincinnati
fundraising campaign has only met 70 percent of its goal. The campaign
acknowledges it’s been a tough year, but campaign chairman David Joyce
says he has been “heartened” by support.

Ohio’s heating assistance program for low-income
households is starting on Nov. 1. Qualifying for the program is
dependent on income and the size of the household. For example,
one-person households making $5,585 or less in the past three months or
$22,340 or less in the past 12 months are eligible, while four-person
households must be making $11,525 or less in the past three months or
$46,100 or less in the past 12 months. For more information, check out
the press release.

Kentucky is pitching into development at the Purple People
Bridge. The state is boosting a $100 million hotel and entertainment
project on the bridge with a $650,000 grant.

The Boy Scouts’ “perversion files” were released, and some of the sexual molestation cases involve Cincinnati.

Science finally has a breakthrough to care about. Scientists invented a strip that ensures pizza and coffee won't burn a person's mouth.

U.S. Senate candidates engage in second round of attacks

For a full hour Thursday night, Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown and
Republican challenger Josh Mandel continued their feisty fight for Ohio’s U.S.
Senate seat. For the most part, the debate centered on the candidates’
records and personal attacks, with policy specifics spewing out in between.

Apparently, the barrage of attacks is not what the
candidates had in mind before the debate started. Throughout the debate, both
candidates asked for substance, not attacks. At one point, Brown said, “I
appreciate this clash of ideas. That’s what this debate should be about.” At another
point, Mandel said, “We need less attacking, and we need more policy ideas to
put people back to work.”

These comments came well into the debate. By that time, Mandel
had criticized Brown for “Washington speak” so many times that an
exasperated Brown quipped, “I don’t get this. Every answer is about Washington
speak.”

Brown also launched his own attacks, which focused on
Mandel’s dishonesty on the campaign trail, which previously earned Mandel a “Pants
on Fire” crown from Cleveland’s The Plain
Dealer, and Mandel, who is also Ohio’s treasurer, missing state treasurer
meetings to run for political office.

But Ohioans have seen enough of the attacks in the hundreds
of campaign ads that have bombarded the state in the past year. Voters probably
want to hear more about how each candidate will affect them, and the candidates
gave enough details to get some idea of where each of them will go.

On economic issues, Brown established the key difference
between the two candidates’ economic policies: Mandel, like most of his
Republican colleagues, believes in the trickle-down theory. The economic theory
says when the rich grow, they can create jobs by hiring more employees and
expanding businesses. In other words, proponents of the theory believe the
success of the rich “trickles down” to the middle class and poor through more
job opportunities. Belief in this theory is also why most Republicans call the
wealthy “job creators.” Under the trickle-down theory, the wealthy are
deregulated and get tax cuts so it’s easier for them to create jobs.

On the other hand, Brown says he supports a middle-out
approach, which focuses on policies that target the middle class. That is how
sustainable employment and growth are attained, according to Brown. Under the
middle-out approach, tax cuts and spending policies target the middle class,
and the wealthy own a higher tax burden to support government programs.

Some economists, like left-leaning Nobel laureate Paul
Krugman, say the trickle-down theory should have been put to rest with the
financial crisis of 2008. After all, deregulation is now credited with being
the primary cause of 2008’s economic crisis. In that context, more deregulation
seems like a bad idea.

Still, Brown’s contrast to Mandel holds true. Brown has
repeatedly called for higher taxes on the rich. In the debate, he touted his
support for the auto bailout and once again mocked Mandel’s promise to not
raise any taxes. These are policies that do end up benefiting the middle class
more than the wealthy. The auto bailout in particular has been credited with
saving thousands of middle-class jobs.

On the other side, Mandel told debate watchers to go to
his website and then offered some quick talking points: simplify the tax code,
end Wall Street bailouts and use Ohio’s natural gas and oil resources “in a
responsible way.” How Mandel wants to simplify the tax code is the issue. On
his website, Mandel says he supports “a flatter, fairer income tax with only
one or two brackets, eliminating almost all of the credits, exemptions and
loopholes.” A study by five leading economists suggests a flat tax model would
greatly benefit the wealthy and actually hurt the well-being of the middle class
and poor. That matches with the trickle-down economic theory.

Another suggestion on Mandel’s website says, “Help job creators.Reduce
capital gains and corporate taxes, and allow for a small business income
deduction.” The small business portion would help some in the middle class, but
an analysis from The Washington Post
found 80 percent of capital gains incomes benefit 5 percent of Americans and
half of all capital gains have gone to the top 0.1 percent of Americans. So a
capital gains tax cut would, again, match the trickle-down economic theory.

What all this means is on economic issues the choice of
candidates depends mostly on what economic theory a voter believes. Brown
believes in focusing economic policies that target the middle class, while
Mandel mostly supports policies that generally support what he calls “job
creators” — or the wealthy.

On partisanship, both sides once again threw out
different ideas. Although he was asked for three ideas, Brown only gave one:
fix the filibuster. The filibuster is a U.S. Senate procedure that allows 41
out of 100 senators to indefinitely halt any laws. The only way to break the
filibuster is by having a supermajority of 60 senators — a rarity in American
politics. Brown said if this rule was removed, a lot more could get done in
Congress.

Mandel had different ideas for stopping partisan gridlock
in Washington, D.C. He touted his support for No Budget, No Pay, which would require
members of Congress to pass a budget in order to get paid. He also expressed
his support for term limits, saying lifelong politicians only add to the partisanship
in Congress. Then, in a strange twist, Mandel’s last suggestion was to stop
bailouts, which has nothing to do with partisanship or gridlock in Congress.

Then came Obamacare. Brown said he was “proud” of his
vote and continued supporting the law, citing the millions of Americans it will
insure. Meanwhile, Mandel responded to the Obamacare question by saying, “The
federal government takeover of health care is not the answer.”

The fact of the matter is Obamacare is not a “government
takeover of health care.” Far from it. The plan doesn’t even have a public
option that would allow Americans to buy into a public, nonprofit insurance
pool — an idea that actually has majority support in the U.S. Instead,
Obamacare is a series of complicated reforms to the health insurance industry.
There are way too many reforms to list, but the most basic
effect of Obamacare is that more people will be insured. That’s right, in the
supposed “government takeover of health care,” insurance companies actually gain
more customers. That’s the whole point of the individual mandate and the many
subsidies in Obamacare that try to make insurance affordable for all Americans.

Mandel made another misleading claim when he said Obamacare
“stole” from Medicare, with the implication that the cuts hurt seniors
utilizing the program. It is true Obamacare cuts Medicare spending, but the
cuts target waste and payments to hospitals and insurers. It does not directly
cut benefits.

The one area with little disagreement also happened to be
the one area with the most misleading: China. It’s not a new trend
for politicians to attack China. The Asian country has become the scapegoat for
all economic problems in the U.S. But in this election cycle, politicians have
brandished a new line to attack China: currency manipulation. This, as Ohioans
have likely heard dozens of times, is why jobs are leaving Ohio and why the amount of
manufacturing jobs has dropped in the U.S. In fact, if politicians are taken
at their word, it’s probably the entire reason the U.S. economy is in a bad
spot.

In the Brown-Mandel debate, Brown repeatedly pointed to
his currency manipulation bill, which he claims would put an end to Chinese
currency manipulation. Mandel also made references to getting tough on China’s
currency manipulation.

One problem: China is no longer manipulating its currency.
There is no doubt China greatly massaged its currency in the past to gain an
unfair advantage, but those days are over, says Joseph Gagnon, an economist
focused on trade and currency manipulation. Gagnon argues the problem with
currency manipulation is no longer a problem with China; it’s a problem with
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia.
If the U.S. wants to crack down on currency manipulation, those countries
should be the targets, not China, he argues.

In other words, if currency manipulation is a problem,
Mandel was right when he said that countries other than China need to be targeted.To Brown’s credit, his currency manipulation bill targets any country engaging in currency manipulation, not just China. The problem
seems to be the misleading campaign rhetoric, not proposed policy.

The debate went on to cover many more issues. Just like
the first debate, Brown typically took the liberal position and Mandel
typically took the conservative position on social issues like gay rights and
abortion. Both touted vague support for small businesses. Each candidate
claimed to support military bases in Ohio, although Mandel specified he wants
bases in Europe closed down to save money. As far as debates go, the contrast
could not be any clearer, and the candidates disagreed on nearly every issue.

The final debate between the two U.S. Senate candidates
will take place in Cincinnati on Oct. 25.

Claim True the Vote is unnecessarily intimidating voters

Ohio Senate Democrats sent a letter to Ohio Secretary of
State Jon Husted and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine on Wednesday asking them
to investigate True the Vote (TTV), a Tea Party group established to
combat alleged voter fraud. The Democrats claim TTV is unnecessarily
intimidating voters.

In the letter, the Democrats say they would find voter
fraud to be a serious problem if it was happening, but they also note
recent studies have found no evidence of widespread voter impersonation fraud. An Oct. 4
Government Accountability Office study could not document a single case
of voter impersonation fraud. A similar study by News21, a Carnegie-Knight
investigative reporting project, found a total of 10 cases of alleged
in-person voter impersonation since 2000. That’s less than one case a
year.

Tim Burke, chairman of both the Hamilton County Board of
Elections and the Hamilton County Democratic Party, says the faulty
voter registration forms, which groups like TTV typically cite as
examples of in-person voter fraud, never amount to real voter fraud.

“Those nonexistent voters never show up to vote,” he says.
“(The forms) were put together by people working on voter registration drives.
Frankly, the intent wasn’t to defraud the board of elections; the
intent was to defraud their employer into making them think they’re
doing more work.”

In other words, people aren't submitting faulty voter registration forms to skew elections; registration drive employees are submitting the forms to try to keep their jobs.

To combat the seemingly nonexistent problem of voter
impersonation fraud, TTV is planning on recruiting one million poll
watchers — people that will stand by polling places to ensure the voting
process is legitimate. The Democrats insist some of the tactics
promoted by the group are illegal. The letter claims it’s illegal for
anyone but election officials to inhibit the voting process in any way.
Most notably, Ohio law prohibits “loiter[ing] in or
about a registration or polling place during registration or the casting
and counting of ballots so as to hinder, delay, or interfere with the
conduct of the registration or election,” according to the letter.

Burke says state law allows both Democrats and Republicans
to hire observers at polling booths. However, the observers can only
watch, and they can’t challenge voters. Even if the appointed observers see suspicious
activity, they have to leave the voting area and report the activity
through other means.

The tactics adopted by TTV have an ugly history in the U.S.
Utilizing poll watchers was one way Southern officials pushed away
minority voters during the segregation era. By asking questions and
being as obstructive as possible, the poll watchers of the segregation
era intimidated black voters into not voting. In the post-segregation
era, the tactics have continued targeting minority and low-income
voters.

The Senate Democrats make note of the ugly history in their
letter: “It has traditionally focused on the voter registration lists in
minority and low-income precincts, utilizing ‘caging’ techniques to
question registrations. It has included encouraging poll watchers to
‘raise a challenge’ when certain voters tried to vote by brandishing
cameras at polling sites, asking humiliating questions of voters, and
slowing down precinct lines with unnecessary challenges and intimidating
tactics. These acts of intimidation undermine protection of the right
to vote of all citizens.”

TTV has already faced some failures in Hamilton County.
Earlier this year, the group teamed up with the Ohio Voter Integrity Project (VIP),
another Tea Party group, to file 380 challenges to the Hamilton County
Board of Elections. Of the 380 challenges, only 35 remain. The vast
majority were thrown out.

“For the most part, they tried to get a bunch of UC
students challenged because they didn’t have their dormitory rooms on
their voter registration rolls,” Burke says. “All of those were
rejected. We did nothing with those.”

But he said the group did bring up one legitimate
challenge. Some voters were still registered in a now-defunct trailer
park in Harrison, Ohio. Since the trailer park no longer exists,
Burke says no one should be voting from there. The board didn’t purge
those voters from the roll, but the board unanimously agreed to ensure those voters are challenged and sent to the correct polling place if they show up to vote.

Still, TTV insists on hunting down all the phantom
impersonators and fraudulent voters. In partnership with VIP, TTV is continuing its mission to stop all the voter impersonation that isn't actually happening.

VIP is brandishing the effort with a program of its own. That organization is now hosting special
training programs for poll workers. The organization insists
its programs are nonpartisan, but Democrats aren’t buying it.

Burke says it’s normal for Democrats and Republicans to
hire poll workers, but if the Voter Integrity Project program puts the
organization’s anti-fraud politics into the training, it could go too
far.

“The job of the poll worker is to assist voters in getting
their ballots cast correctly,” Burke says. “It’s to be helpful. It’s
not to be belligerent. It’s not to be making voters feel like they’re
doing something evil.”

He added, “If poll workers are
coming in and deciding that they’re going to be aggressive police
officers making everybody feel like they’re engaged in voter fraud and
therefore trying to intimidate voters, that’s absolutely wrong.”

In case you missed it, CityBeat is hosting a party
for the final presidential debate at MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine. There
will be live tweeting, and Councilman Chris Seelbach will be on-hand to discuss this year's key issues. Even if you can’t come, make sure to live tweet during the
presidential debate using the hashtag #cbdebate. More info can be found
at the event’s Facebook page.

A new study found redistricting makes
government even more partisan. The Fair Vote study says redistricting
divides government into clear partisan boundaries by eliminating
competitive districts. In Ohio, redistricting is handled by elected
officials, and they typically use the process for political advantage by
redrawing district boundaries to ensure the right demographics for
re-election. Issue 2 attempts to combat this problem. If voters approve
Issue 2, redistricting will be taken out of the hands of elected
officials and placed into the hands of an independent citizens
commission. The Republican-controlled process redrew the First
Congressional District, which includes Cincinnati, by adding Warren
County to the district. Since Warren County typically votes Republican,
this gives an advantage to Republicans in the First Congressional
District. CityBeat previously covered the redistricting reform effort here.

Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown and Republican
challenger Josh Mandel will face off in another debate for Ohio’s seat
in the U.S. Senate today. The two candidates met Monday in a feisty
exchange in which the men argued over their records and policies. Brown and
Mandel will face off at 8 p.m. The debate will be streamed live on
10TV.com and Dispatch.com. Currently, the race is heavily in Brown’s
favor; he is up 5.2 points in aggregate polling.

Cincinnati is moving forward with its bike sharing
program. A new study found the program will attract 105,000 trips in its
first year, and it will eventually expand to 305,000 trips a year. With
the data in hand, Michael Moore, director of the Department of
Transportation and Engineering, justified the program to The Business Courier:
“We want Cincinnatians to be able to incorporate cycling into their
daily routine, and a bike share program will help with that. Bike share
helps introduce citizens to active transportation, it reduces the number
of short auto trips in the urban core, and it promotes sustainable
transportation options.”

Cincinnati’s school-based health centers are showing promise. Two more are scheduled to open next year.

Echoing earlier comments by Ohio Secretary of State Jon
Husted, Ohio Senate Republicans are now talking about using the lame
duck session to take up a bill that would set standard early voting
hours and tighten voting requirements. Republicans are promising broad
consensus, but Democrats worry the move could be another Republican ploy
at voter suppression. Republicans defend the law by saying it would
combat voter fraud, but in-person voter fraud isn’t a real issue. A recent study
by the Government Accountability Office found zero examples of in-person
voter fraud in the last 10 years. Another investigation by News21 had
similar results. Republicans have also justified making voting tougher
and shorter by citing racial politics and costs.

A Hamilton County judge’s directive is causing trouble. Judge Tracie Hunter sent out a directive to
hire a second court administrator because she believes the current
county administrator is only working for the other juvenile judge. The
county government is trying to figure out if Hunter has the authority to hire a new
administrator.

This year’s school report card data held up a long-term
trend: Public schools did better than charter schools. In Ohio, the
average charter school meets slightly more than 30 percent of the
state’s indicators, while the average traditional public school meets 78
percent of the state’s indicators, according to findings from the
education policy fellow at left-leaning Innovation Ohio. The data for
all Ohio schools can be found here.

Some in the fracking industry are already feeling a bit of
a bust. The gas drilling business is seeing demand rapidly drop, and
that means $1 billion lost in profits. CityBeat wrote in-depth about the potential fracking bust here.

Ohio student loan debt is piling up. A report by Project
on Student Debt says Ohio has the seventh-highest student loan debt in
the nation with an average of $28,683 in 2011. That number is a 3.5
percent increase from 2010.

The second presidential debate between President Barack
Obama and Mitt Romney took place last night. The general consensus from the
media is Obama won. Although the victory will likely inspire an Obama
comeback narrative for some political pundits, keep in mind political
scientists say debates typically have little electoral impact. But
debates can reveal substance, and The Washington Post has an
article “footnoting” the policy specifics from the debate. As of today,
aggregate polling shows Obama up in Ohio by 2.2 points and Romney up
nationally by 0.4 points. Ohio is widely considered a must-win for
Romney. Obama and Romney will have their final debate next Monday. CityBeat will be hosting an event at MOTR Pub in Over-the-Rhine during the debate. More info can be found on the event’s Facebook page.

The Ohio Department of Education released its remaining
school report card data today. The data is meant to give Ohioans a clear
picture as to whether schools are improving. The data was delayed due
to an ongoing investigation into attendance rigging at Ohio schools. In
the new report card data, Cincinnati Public Schools was downgraded from
“Effective” in the 2010-2011 school year to “Continuous Improvement” in
the 2011-2012 school year. The new mark is still positive, but it is a
downgrade.

Down goes Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted’s early
voting appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. With the Supreme Court refusing
to take up Husted’s appeal, Ohio must allow all voters to vote on the
weekend and Monday before Election Day. Husted also sent out a directive
enforcing uniform voting hours for the three days. On Saturday, booths will be open 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. On Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. On Monday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

It seems City Council action was not enough to get Duke
Energy to budge on the streetcar. The local energy company says it wants
an operating agreement before it starts construction work. On Sept. 24,
City Council passed a funding deal that shifted $15 million from the
Blue Ash airport deal to the streetcar and established $14 million
through a new financing plan. The city says it will get the $15
million back if it wins in the dispute with Duke. The city claims it’s
Duke’s responsibility to pay for moving utility pipes and lines to
accommodate for the streetcar, but Duke insists it’s the city’s
responsibility.

The University Board of Trustees is expected to approve
Santa Ono as UC’s new president. Ono has been serving as interim
president ever since Greg Williams abruptly resigned, citing personal
reasons.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital announced a big
breakthrough in combating muscular dystrophy. The hospital claims it
successfully installed a device in a patient with Duchenne muscular
dystrophy that allows the patient’s heart to pump blood to the body in
the long term.

With Gov. John Kasich's recommendation, Ohio universities
will have cheaper, quicker options for students. A new provision will
require 10 percent of bachelor’s degrees from public universities to be
completable in three years instead of four.

Ohio’s attorney general wants help in solving an unsolved
double homicide in Cincinnati. Attorney General Mike DeWine has recently
fixated on cold cases — previously unsolved cases that could be solved
with new information and tools.